Bloomington Faculty Council - Educational Policies
Committee
General Education Requirements
for Baccalaureate Degrees
at
Indiana University Bloomington
December 1, 2005
The Constitution of the Indiana University Faculty assigns to School
Faculties the primary legislative authority over curriculum and the conferring
of degrees for their Schools. 1 Respecting this principle, this document
establishes norms that School Faculties should follow and implement in the
requirements for their baccalaureate degrees. School Faculties may depart from
these norms for such reasons as certification and licensing requirements;
however, all departures should be reviewed and discussed periodically with the
Bloomington Faculty Council and Bloomington Academic Officers. If disagreements
should persist, then the Bloomington Faculty Council has the authority under the
Constitution to determine how the authority of the Bloomington Faculty shall be
exercised. 2
The Nature of General Education for Undergraduates
An undergraduate college education should
broaden, enhance, and strengthen a person's knowledge, intellectual
capabilities, and understanding. The undergraduate student must grow from an
epistemology and ethics based on authority to one based on an autonomous,
reasoned evaluation of assertions and evidence. A holder of a baccalaureate
degree should be able to analyze critically the surrounding world and to
articulate that analysis coherently to others. The holder should be able to draw
upon a broad understanding of multiple disciplines in order to participate fully
in contemporary society.
To this end, an Indiana University undergraduate
education should provide a sound foundation in written and verbal communication,
qualitative and quantitative analysis and reasoning, and literacy in information
resources; a solid breadth of knowledge, intellectual capabilities, and
understanding; opportunities for educational engagement with the local and
global community; and significant strength in at least one discipline or one
interdisciplinary area.
General education encompasses the first and second of
these: a sound foundation in written and verbal communication,
qualitative and quantitative analysis and
reasoning, and literacy in information resources; and a solid breadth of
knowledge, intellectual capabilities, and understanding. General education is a
part of a liberal arts education, but the latter - as exemplified by the BA
degree offered by the College of Arts and Sciences - aims for greater, and more
solid, breadth than the former. General education may be thought of as being
that portion of a liberal arts education that develops intellectual capabilities
and knowledge across disciplines and that should be a part of every
baccalaureate degree offered by Indiana University.
The April, 2004, A Report on the Harvard College
Curricular Review (Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences) in its
section on "General Education" (page 11) noted that
"Different institutions have defined general education in
different ways. Some stress coverage of specific knowledge that every educated
person should have, while others emphasize development of skills that are
essential to the acquisition, communication, and generation of knowledge."
The report goes on to observe that each of these approaches has
merit and they are not incompatible.
Indeed, these two approaches are complementary
dimensions of general education both of which are essential to an Indiana
University undergraduate education. In the knowledge dimension, a student must
learn a broad base of foundational knowledge in the liberal arts and sciences.
In the intellectual capabilities dimension, a student must learn communication,
quantitative, analytical, and reasoning skills spanning the range of deductive,
empirical, and aesthetic methodologies. Only then can the student bring to bear
relevant knowledge and analytical skills to analyze and understand complex
situations and cogently communicate that understanding to others.
Undergraduate education at Indiana University has long
been characterized by its strength and commitment to the arts, humanities,
foreign languages and diverse indigenous and international cultures, and the
empirical sciences - including the social sciences, physical and life sciences,
managerial sciences, and educational sciences. What is distinctive about the
general education model outlined below is the emphasis on international studies
and the sciences. An Indiana University degree ought to be responsive to the two
great educational demands of the twenty-first century, namely, the need for a
global perspective in all fields of learning and the need among the state,
national, and global citizenry for the capacity to evaluate the technical,
political, social, and ethical implications of scientific knowledge and to
distinguish between dogma and empirically tested scientific knowledge.
Traditionally, general education requirements have
been formulated along the knowledge dimension in terms of fundamental skill
requirements and the long recognized disciplinary groupings of arts and
humanities, social sciences, and natural and life sciences, as in the
Bloomington campus' 1981 ``General
Education Requirements for the Baccalaureate Degree'' , in which students
are required to take several courses in each group.
Some IU campuses that have formulated policies more
recently than Bloomington have retained the traditional groupings but given them
more descriptive names, as in the Fort Wayne campus' "The Individual, Culture,
and Society" and "Humanistic Thought" groups, and have added new groupings, as
in the Southeast campus' "Critical Thinking" and "Diversity" groups.
The South Bend campus is currently engaged in carrying
this evolution to its natural end of identifying thematic areas with a
requirement of one course in each thematic area: "Literary and Intellectual
Traditions", "Human Behavior and Social Institutions", "The Natural World",
"Art, Aesthetics, and Creativity", "Diversity in American Society", "Non-Western
Cultures", and "Health and Wellness".
All of these approaches define general education in
terms of the knowledge dimension, although some are more so, e.g., Bloomington's
approach, while others are less so, e.g., Southeast's approach which specifies
intellectual "outcomes" criteria for determining which courses qualify for
inclusion in its new groupings.
The Indianapolis campus, on other hand, in its ``Principles of
Undergraduate Learning'' , has defined its requirements for undergraduate
education entirely along the intellectual capabilities dimension. Its students
are expected to acquire the intellectual skills identified in the "Principles of
Undergraduate Learning" over the whole of their undergraduate career. The
Indianapolis faculty are currently engaged in defining what levels of these
capabilities should be acquired and demonstrated during the first year, during
the middle years, and during the final year.
Of the "Principles of Undergraduate Learning," the
ones that are integral to the general education of beginning undergraduate
students are (1) "Core Communication and Quantitative Skills"; (2) the first
steps toward "Critical Thinking"; (3) the "Breadth" portion of "Intellectual
Depth, Breadth, and Adaptiveness"; (4) much of "Understanding Society and
Culture"; and (5) aesthetic judgment and the University's core value of academic
integrity in "Values and Ethics."
The Bloomington Context
- Bloomington Faculty Council resolution of 1981. 3
The Bloomington Faculty Council adopted a policy on
general education requirements for all baccalaureate degrees instituted after
the date of its adoption. The requirement was that all such degrees should
include a general education requirement that each student take at least forty
degree hours, outside the student's major, distributed among the following
areas with at least nine hours in each of these areas:
- Life and physical sciences
- Social sciences, and
- Humanities.
However, this policy has not been
followed. Furthermore, it does not apply to degrees instituted prior its
adoption.
- Recent efforts
- The Gray Committee Report and the Proposal for the Reform of the
Freshman Year (1998-99)
In January, 1998, a committee of senior faculty
members appointed by Chancellor Gros Louis and chaired by Professor Don Gray
submitted its report "Undergraduate Education in Bloomington - A Report to
the Chancellor." This report discussed what "graduates of baccalaureate
programs in Bloomington should know and be able to do" (abilities,
knowledge, and values), how well these purposes were being accomplished, and
what steps should be taken. Among its recommendations was a call for the
creation of a committee to study the first two years of undergraduate
education at Bloomington.
The Chancellor appointed such a committee, which
submitted its recommendations during the summer of 1998. From these
recommendations and those of the Gray Committee, Chancellor Gros Louis
submitted to the campus faculty, via the Bloomington Faculty Council, a
"Proposal on General Education", that subsequently was referred to as the
"Proposal for the Reform of the Freshman Year." Two of the items in this
proposal - Freshman Seminars and a course on the Traditions and Culture of
Indiana University were implemented. However, other proposal on Approaches
to Learning and Learning in Teams did not find favor and were not
implemented.
- The Unified Distribution Requirement effort (1999-2000)
The Campus Curriculum Committee, decided to take
the multidisciplinary aspects of the Proposal on General Education, which
had not been implemented, and recast them as a campus-wide distribution
requirement. The plan was "... an attempt to build consensus campuswide
distribution-requirement course menus by pooling about 20 hours of each
school's G. E. requirements." 4 This proposal had strong supporters, but it
failed because of certification and licensing requirements, especially in
HPER and Education, and because of opposition from the School of Business,
which viewed the proposal from the Campus Curriculum Committee as an
"administrative invasion of faculty prerogatives." 5
- Common Undergraduate General Education Requirements (COUGER) (2000-01)
The next year, the Campus Curriculum Committee
proposed a reduced version of its Unified Distribution Requirement. The
reduced version - the proposal for "Common Undergraduate General Education
Requirements" - called for each school to revise its general education
requirement to require at least 20 credits in general education, consisting
of 2-3 credits in written communication, 3 credits in finite mathematics or
calculus, 3-9 credits in the arts and humanities, 3-9 credits in social and
historical studies, and 3-9 credits in the natural and mathematical sciences
(the latter to be above the 3 credits in finite mathematics or calculus).
Courses could be offered by any school, and courses appearing on a
campus-wide list of approved courses for each category would have to be
accepted by each school as meeting its degree requirements. The College
would be authorized to determine which of its courses satisfied each
category. However, the Campus Curriculum Committee would manage the list of
courses from outside COAS.
This proposal failed because of opposition from
the College that it would be forced to accept courses for its degree
requirements that it had not approved. This infringed on the authority
of the faculty of each school to determine the requirements for its degrees.
- Recommendation from the Strategic Planning Committee (2003)
The campus' Strategic Planning Committee, in its May
12, 2003, report on "General Priorities: Strategic Needs and Opportunities",
said:
1.4. There also appears to be a need for more clarity and
structure in the curricula across the campus, and for clearer relationships
among those curricula and between them and coursework at other IU campuses
and other Indiana educational institutions. Attention to these important
issues should include:
1.4.1.
Articulation of common requirements that all students should have met, or
minimum competencies that all students should be able to demonstrate, prior
to graduation.
1.4.2.
Renewed consideration of general education requirements. At a minimum, the
campus should standardize how the main distribution areas are designated and
specify what courses count for each in a way that can be used by every
school.
1.4.3. A
sound, consistent, and predictable basis for accepting course credit from
other campuses and Indiana colleges and universities.
- The 2003 Task Force on Undergraduate Education and the Report from
University Division
Chancellor Brehm and Vice Chancellor Moya Andrews,
during the summer of 2003, convened a Task Force on Undergraduate Education.
Dean Sally Dunn (University Division) submitted a proposal on and an analysis
of general education requirements for the primary baccalaureate degrees of the
schools on the Bloomington campus. The proposal encouraged the schools to try
reach agreement on what courses would satisfy the English composition
requirement, what the names should be for the three primary distribution areas
(i.e., arts and humanities, social sciences, and natural and mathematical
sciences), and what courses would satisfy distribution requirements in these
distribution areas.
- IUPUI policies and multi-campus schools (1998)
In May of 1998, the IUPUI Faculty Council adopted a
proposal on "Principles of Undergraduate Learning." ( http://www.jaguars.iupui.edu/gened/gnedprin.html This proposal
identifies six areas in which baccalaureate graduates should have intellectual
competence and cultural and ethical awareness: (1) core communication and
quantitative skills; (2) critical thinking; (3) integration and application of
knowledge; (4) intellectual depth, breadth, and adaptiveness; (5)
understanding society and culture; and (6) values and ethics. Each school that
has programs on the IUPUI campus, including multi-campus and system schools
such as Business, Education, and Informatics, is required to identify how
their courses teach these principles and how competence related to each
principle will be learned and assessed.
These principles are not a general education
requirement per se; rather they are principles by which each school must
design its general education requirements.
- President Herbert's call for an Indiana University, system-wide, general
education curriculum that "serves as the defining characteristic of the IU
undergraduate experience."
- Harvard's reform of its undergraduate curriculum (2004)
In 2004 Harvard
released a review
of its undergraduate curriculum.6 The main recommendations
were to replace its then current system of general education
(the Core Program) with a new system of general education with courses that
"... expand the horizons of both faculty and students; introduce bodies of
knowledge, concepts, and major texts; develop and reinforce critical skills in
reasoning and in written and oral expression; ...." Students should be able to
fulfill their general education requirements through courses selected "...
within large areas of knowledge." The areas might build on Harvard's current
divisional structure - humanities, social sciences, life sciences, and
physical sciences. Most importantly, every student should be required to
complete an international experience abroad, and every student "... should be
educated in the sciences in a manner that is as deep and broadly shared, as
has traditionally been the case in the humanities and the social sciences."
- Statement on General Education from the Higher Learning Commisssion of the
North Central Association (2003)
Understanding and appreciating diverse cultures, mastering
multiple modes of inquiry, effectively analyzing and communicating
information, and recognizing the importance of creativity and values to the
human spirit not only allow people to live richer lives but also are a
foundation for most careers and for the informed exercise of local,
national, and international citizenship. The Commission expects
organizations of higher learning to address these important ends, and has
embedded this expectation in its Criteria for Accreditation.
Throughout its history, the Commission has
believed that quality undergraduate higher education involves breadth as
well as depth of study. As understood by the Commission, general education
is intended to impart common knowledge and intellectual concepts to students
and to develop in them the skills and attitudes that an organization's
faculty believe every educated person should possess. From an organization's
general education, a student acquires a breadth of knowledge in the areas
and proficiency in the skills that the organization identifies as hallmarks
of being college educated. Moreover, effective general education helps
students gain competence in the exercise of independent intellectual inquiry
and also stimulates their examination and understanding of personal, social,
and civic values.
Effective general education can be shaped to fit
unique organizational contexts. As higher education changes, so too do the
ways in which organizations create and provide general education. General
education must be valued and owned by the organization whether its courses
are created, purchased, or shared; whether faculty are full-time, part-time,
or employed by a partner organization; and whether the organization creates
general education opportunities primarily through curriculum or relies
heavily on experiential and off-campus opportunities to achieve its learning
goals for general education.
Regardless of how a higher learning organization
frames the general education necessary to fulfill its mission and goals, it
clearly and publicly articulates the purposes, content, and intended
learning outcomes of the general education it provides for its students. It
also shows its commitment to the centrality of general education by
including an appropriate component of general education in all undergraduate
programs of substantial length, whether they lead to certificates, diplomas,
or degrees. Moreover, the organization's faculty exercises oversight for
general education and, working with the administration, regularly assesses
its effectiveness against the organization's stated goals for student
learning.
Indiana University Bloomington Baccalaureate
Degrees,
General Education Components of
At this time in the Campus' life, the purpose
of stating a minimal general education requirement for baccalaureate degrees is
to affirm the importance of both the knowledge dimension and the intellectual
capabilities dimension of general education and to unite them in a shared,
distinctive general education program for Indiana University Bl
oomington.
By 2011, every baccalaureate degree offered by Indiana
University Bloomington should include, as a subset of its general education
requirements, provisions that embody and implement the principles and
curriculum described below.
These principles and curriculum shall
be the norm for a basic level of general education that will shared by all
baccalaureate degrees. In most instances, schools will want to adopt stronger
requirements than the basic level describe here. Although a school could adopt
the specific language given below, in most instances schools will want to recast
these principles and requirements in broader statements of educational
philosophy and principles. School Faculties and the Bloomington Faculty,
exercising their respective authority as set forth in the Constitution of the
Indiana University Faculty either through their representative, elected Policy
Committees and Councils or through direct referenda , may strengthen these
principles and requirements by specifying additional principles and
requirements, levels of courses, additional interdisciplinary content,
intellectual competencies, etc. School Faculties and the Bloomington Faculty,
exercising their respective authority as previously described, may modify these
principles and requirements to take account their unique circumstances and
licensing and accreditation requirements. However, School Faculties and the
Bloomington Campus Faculty should be aware that modifications of the norm
described by the principles and requirements below may penalize
students who transfer from their degree programs to other IU degree programs. In
formulating their requirements, School Faculties and the Bloomington Faculty
should be cognizant of their responsibilities under the policies of the
University Faculty Council and the Board of Trustees to strive to facilitate
articulation of courses and degree requirements between campuses for the benefit
of students who transfer between campuses of the University.
- Principles: Every IU baccalaureate degree program should require
students
- to learn foundational concepts, knowledge, perspectives and skills in
communication and in qualitative and quantitative analysis at a
college-level,
- to learn fundamental ideas, theories, perspectives, ethics,
methodologies, and applications in the arts and humanities, in the social
sciences and historical and cultural studies, and in the physical and life
sciences,
- to develop intellectual capabilities for applying knowledge in critical,
reasoned analyses and judgments using empirical, normative, and logical
methodologies appropriately, and
- to develop their writing and communication skills beyond a foundational
level.
- Curriculum
:
- Foundations: The following items form the foundations of
knowledge and core communication and quantitative skills for a college
education and should, whenever possible, be completed during the freshman
year. These requirements may be fulfilled either by college-level courses or
by prior learning as evidenced by scores on placement and advanced placement
exams. If fulfilled by courses, the courses should be courses that either
are taught on all IU campuses or have equivalents on all IU campuses.
- A student should be able to write coherently and properly.
This requirement will normally and ordinarily be
met through an English composition/writing class at the level of W131 or
higher or a literature course that emphasizes writing; however, a school
or the Campus may adopt an alternative approach.
- A student should be able to analyze and handle quantitative
information.
This requirement will normally and ordinarily be
met through a college-level mathematics, statistics, or quantitative
reasoning class that covers significant quantitative concepts and
reasoning above and beyond the level of algebra.
A course whose content significantly overlaps
the Core 40 list of topics for algebra 1 and 2 and geometry is not a
college-level mathematics course; responsibility for determining whether a
course is college-level for this requirement shall, in accordance with the
University's Master Course Inventory Policy, be vested collectively in the
Mathematics Departments of the campuses of Indiana University. Whether a
course is college-level depends in part upon the Bloomington campus'
admission requirements; if Bloomington's admission requirement in
mathematics coincides with the Core 40 minimum of two years of algebra and
one year of geometry, then a course such as Math M025 might be considered
to be college-level for purposes of this requirement even though it does
not carry credit toward graduation. However, if Bloomington's admission
requirement in mathematics includes a semester of precalculus, then a
course such as Math M025 might not be considered to be college-level for
the purposes of this requirement. Examples of courses that would be
college-level are A118, M118, M119, K300, and higher level mathematics and
statistics courses.
A school may adopt an alternative approach, but
doing so may penalize students who transfer from one degree program to
another.
- A student should satisfy all other communication, analytical, and
information literacy skill requirements specified for the student's school
and degree program by the faculty of that school and degree program,
respectively.
- Intellectual Capabilities and Breadth of Knowledge: Every IU
Bloomington baccalaureate degree should require college-level courses that
simultaneously develop students' intellectual capabilities and introduce
students broadly to the scholarship, ideas, and methodology of one or more
fields with the disciplinary breadth specified below. To be acceptable for a
general education requirement in this section, a course should demonstrate
through its syllabus, readings, learning outcomes, and assignments and exams
that it both introduces students to fundamental ideas, theories,
perspectives, methodologies, ethics and applications and moreover aims to
develop their intellectual capacity for applying this knowledge in critical,
reasoned, methodologically sound analyses appropriate to the discipline and
subject matter. 7 Academic departments and faculty shall have
the responsibility and shall be held accountable for insuring that their
general education courses continuously meet this standard.
In order to facilitate students' transferring from
one campus to another, whenever possible, the accepted courses should
include courses that either are taught on all IU campuses or have
equivalents on all IU campuses.
- A student should take at least two courses in the Humanities and Arts,
however this group may be described. Regardless of how this requirement is
formulated, the courses should be in different departments, disciplines,
or thematic areas.
- A student should take at least two courses in the Social and
Behavioral Sciences. This grouping might be described in many ways.
The courses should be in different departments,
disciplines, or thematic areas.
- A student should take at least 5 credit hours in the Physical and Life
Sciences, including, whenever possible, at least one laboratory or field
experience or observational course.
- A student should take at least two courses that are either (i) a study
of a culture other than the student's own culture or a study of the
diversity within the student's own culture, (ii) a foreign language at the
sophomore level or higher, or (iii) an international experience.
- A student should take at least one course that teaches significant
applications of computer/information technology within a discipline or is
a college-level computer science or informatics course.
- A student should take at least one course in a professional school or
in a professional department within the College that provides an
introduction to that profession and meets the intellectual capabilities
and breadth of knowledge criteria stated above, i.e., introduces students
to fundamental ideas, theories, perspectives, methodologies, ethics, and
applications and develops their intellectual capacity for applying this
knowledge in critical, reasoned, methodologically sound analyses
appropriate to the profession. This course should be in a
different school than the course used for the preceding requirement on
applications of computing technology/computer science/informatics.
- To further strengthen the student's writing abilities, at least two of
the courses used to satisfy the preceding
six
requirements in this section should contain significant writing
components, or one of the courses should be an intensive writing
experience, or the student's degree should require a capstone research
writing experience in either the major or an interdisciplinary integrative
course.
Of the courses taken to satisfy
requirements 2.a.i, 2.b.i, 2.b.ii, 2.b.iii, 2.b.iv(i), and
2.b.iv(ii), all or all but one should be in the College of Arts and Sciences.
- Other Provisions:
- Students should complete these requirements, except for any capstone
writing experience, prior to their junior year, except in cases of personal
or programmatic exigencies and in cases of international experiences.
- For all requirements except the Physical and Life Sciences requirement,
all courses used to satisfy the requirements must count at least 3 credit
hours toward the completion of a baccalaureate degree, except that courses
transferred from other institutions on quarter systems as 2 credit hour
courses may be used to satisfy these requirements.
- Only courses in which a student receives a grade of C- or better may be
used to satisfy these requirements. The reason for this grade requirement is
that the overall goal of this general education policy is for every Indiana
University baccalaureate student (i) to learn "fundamental ideas, theories,
perspectives, methodologies, ethics and applications" and (ii) to develop
her/his "intellectual capacity for applying this knowledge in critical,
reasoned, methodologically sound analyses appropriate to the discipline and
subject matter." A student who earns less than a C- will not have achieved
this goal. A school or the campus may weaken this requirement, but doing so
may penalize students who transfer from one degree program to another and
may undercut the school's or the campus' effort to demonstrate the efficacy
of its general education program for purposes of accreditation. If a school
does weaken this requirement, then it should have an alternate plan for
assessing and demonstrating the efficacy of its general education program.
- Normally, no course should be used to satisfy two or more of these
requirements, except that a course may satisfy both the writing requirement
in the Intellectual Capabilities and Breadth of Knowledge section and one
other requirement in that section. A school or the campus may grant
exceptions to this for particular, interdisciplinary courses.
- Although the names used for the categories of courses are usually
associated with groups of disciplines within the College of Arts and/or
Sciences, this does not mean that the courses used for those requirements
have to be within the College of Arts and Sciences. The courses may be in
any school, but they need to meet the normal standards of those disciplinary
groups. For instance, a course taught in a School of Music or School of
Journalism might qualify to be an Arts and Humanities course. A course
taught in the Schools of Business, Education, Public and Environmental
Affairs, etc., might qualify to be a Social Science course. A course taught
in a Schools of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation Physical
Education, Public and Environmental Affairs, etc., might qualify as a
Physical and Life Sciences course.
- Within a school, the elected Faculty Policy Committee shall have primary
authority for resolving disagreements within the school concerning the
appropriateness of courses for satisfying these requirements; if that
committee is unable to resolve a disagreement, then the Dean of the school
shall have authority to resolve the disagreement. For the campus, the
Bloomington Faculty Council shall have primary authority for resolving
disagreements between units on
the campus concerning the
appropriateness of courses for satisfying these requirements; however, if
the Faculty Council is unable to resolve a disagreement, then the Chancellor
of the campus shall have the authority to resolve the disagreement.
Footnotes:
1"Constitution
of the Indiana University Faculty", sections 2.2.D, 2.2.E, 2.4.A.5, and 2.4.A.6.
2op. cite,
sections 2.2.D and preamble of 2.4.
3Although
the date of passage of this policy is asserted in the Bloomington Academic
Guide and on the BFC web site to be March 3, 1981, the actual date must be
otherwise, because it does not appear in the BFC minutes for that date.
4Robert
Eno, Chair, BFC EPC, Oct. 9, 2001, memo to EPC.
5loc. cit.
6
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/curriculum-review/
7Because
each course used for requirements in this section must demonstrably both
introduce "students to fundamental ideas, theories, perspectives, methodologies,
ethics and applications" and aim "to develop their intellectual capacity for
applying this knowledge in critical, reasoned, methodologically sound analyses
appropriate to the discipline and subject matter", prior learning as evidenced
by placement and advanced placement exams will not normally satisfy the
requirements in this section. However, if a student earns credit with a grade of
C- or better by transfer or by
examination for a course that would otherwise satisfy a requirement in this
section, then the credit by transfer or examination will suffice to satisfy the
requirement.